What I Learned About Cooking from a Middle School Cooking Competition

The clicks of gas stoves being ignited, the scrape of heavy-bottom pots against stovetops, the heated whispers of a bustling kitchen — you'd think that I'm on the set of a Top Chef episode, but I'm actually at Griffiths Middle School in Downey, California, witnessing 12- to 14-year-olds masterfully zip around an industrial-sized kitchen. It's the middle school's first-ever cooking competition and they are hosting three other middle schools within the district — Doty, Stauffer, and Sussman — in a macaroni-and-cheese-themed cooking battle. Only one of the four teams will be crowned victorious.

The atmosphere is nothing like what I remember from middle school. When I was 12, home economics (is it even called that anymore?) meant learning how to prepare latchkey kid essentials like pizza bagels and shaking bags of peanut butter-coated puppy chow without a single concern about allergens. Large groups of students gathered around one toaster oven to watch our teacher prepare cinnamon sugar toast before we were shepherded to our next class 20 minutes later. From what I recall, cooking was a minuscule part of the year's curriculum; we probably spent a week or two in total learning about it. And I was privileged — many of my friends never had access to any type of cooking class in school.

It's different at Griffiths, which introduced its culinary program in 2016. "To have kids engaged in school, the reality is you have to find something every student is passionate about," explains Ashley Catanzano, the public information officer at Downey Unified School District. There are 24 different career technical education (CTE) pathways within the district, ranging from welding to biotechnology to, yes, food science. Within these programs, including the culinary arts track, students get hands-on experience and can even graduate with certifications that prepare them for jobs beyond school. The high school program has been running since 2010 and even has a food truck that students in the advanced culinary classes learn how to run and eventually use to cater events within the community.

But that's high school. This is middle school — and although the students are enrolled in a cooking class, they don't necessarily see this as a career path, although it can be a head start if they want pursue the culinary arts track. For Maddy, age 13, choosing cooking as an elective was a way to get closer to her family. "Three times a week I see my dad cooking and I want to help," she explains. For Bristol, also 13, the motivation is similar: "Sometimes, my mom is so overwhelmed so I want to be able to step in and help make something," she says. Addison, 13, decided to take culinary arts because her mom is a baker and she's inspired by her, while Hannah, 14, became more interested in cooking from browsing food blogs.

Although the students are self-sufficiently buzzing around the room, their hands washed and hair tied back or in nets, the curriculum doesn't immediately transform them into cooking experts. Kim Silverman, who has been teaching at Griffiths for four years, begins with the basics. "We start brand new," she says. "We teach them how to wash dishes, sweep the floor, and wipe down a counter. We're teaching them basic life skills."

For Silverman, who is a former instructor at Le Cordon Bleu, the differences between working with adults versus kids was a bit jarring. "When I first got there, it was hard because I assumed they knew everything," she says.

The curriculum, compared to culinary school, is flip-flopped. "When you teach adults, you start out with knife skills right away," Silverman explains. "Here, I have to start with baking first because I need for them to learn how to walk around a kitchen with 30 other people before I give them a knife."

The students, however, seem to have caught on with ease. This isn't their first time cooking under pressure: Every Thanksgiving, the class also prepares proteins and side dishes for the staff, using the skills they've gained over the course of a semester. I watch them dice onions, grate cheese, skillfully peel tomatoes, and even blanch lobster for their lobster mac and cheese. They meticulously wash their hands and move around each other like they're in a choreographed dance: One person boils the pasta and another prepares a roux, while a third sets the mise for the cheese sauce, and a fourth washes dishes and wipes down their station as they go. It's a lesson I feel I need to be more mindful of: Ensuring that I, and my cooking space, are sanitized and cleaning as I go.

As a home cook, I also feel that cooking is such a singular activity. My kitchen is my domain, meaning guests are typically banished until the food is ready to be served. The students, however, show me that cooking can be a shared experience and can still be fun. If anything, I should let my guests at least come in and help me wipe down the counters and rinse off my spatulas and cutting boards.

Beyond the basics the students seem to have nailed down, I'm also impressed with their thoughtfulness when it comes to nutrition. "We want students to have an awareness of foodborne illnesses, of making informed decisions on food choice," says Catanzano. For this macaroni and cheese battle, they found the recipes and made deliberate choices in how to make each one more nutritious, whether that meant cutting down on butter and heavy cream, swapping out traditional pasta for protein pasta, or incorporating vegetables into their dishes.

At the end of the competition, there were four worthy versions of macaroni and cheese: lobster, cacio e pepe, steak and peppers, and smoky chipotle. And although there was only one winner (Griffiths took the crown with their lobster macaroni and cheese), the skills the students acquired and their kitchen camaraderie felt much more valuable than a trophy. That, and their ability to make a cheese sauce from scratch — something that I still split and ruin from time to time.

"The students are capable of so much more than we can give them credit for," says Silverman, who coached the winning team to their lobster macaroni and cheese victory. "They just need somebody to come in there and show them how to do it properly. And, at the end of the day, there's an instant gratification of something to eat."